Carabao

Napa Valley's First Filipino Restaurant

Carabao opened in 2024 at 145 Gasser Dr Suite C, Napa, CA 94558. It is a Modern Filipino restaurant led by chef Jade Mauricio Cunningham, with a Google rating of 4.9 and an average spend of about $60 per person. The restaurant is a partnership between Cunningham, her husband Mathew Cunningham, and investor Eric F. Gonzales, the son of Filipino immigrants who has framed the project as a piece of Napa's cultural infrastructure rather than just another opening.

The name comes from the carabao, the water buffalo that is the national animal of the Philippines, a symbol the team has explicitly tied to "strength, perseverance, and deep cultural identity." For a kitchen translating a home-cooking tradition into a fine-dining context, that framing matters: Filipino cuisine has been historically under-represented at this register in California, and Carabao is positioning itself in the small set of restaurants, alongside places like Bay Area mainstays, that treat Filipino food as a complete restaurant cuisine rather than a single trend dish.

Chef Jade Cunningham, From Bulacan to The French Laundry

Cunningham was born and raised in Bulacan, in central Luzon, and started cooking at six. She earned a Hotel and Restaurant Management degree from La Consolacion University Philippines before training internationally, eventually landing at The French Laundry in Yountville under Thomas Keller and chef de cuisine David Breeden. She also held a line-chef post at The Meritage Resort and Spa before launching Carabao as a late-night pop-up in December 2022.

That first pop-up sold out on its first night. The team kept running pop-ups, including kamayan dinners and prix-fixe formats, for nearly three years while Cunningham continued her work at The French Laundry, with Keller and Breeden's encouragement. She founded Carabao Napa LLC and left The French Laundry in 2022 to commit to the brick-and-mortar build, which finally opened on Gasser Drive in mid-2025. The restaurant carries Cunningham's stated mantra throughout: "Having a dream is hard, living it is harder."

The Menu

The menu is structured around traditional Filipino course categories rather than a Western tasting-menu arc:

• Kukutin (small bites), pork lumpia with a housemade sweet chili sauce, deviled egg adobo with crispy garlic, and sisig tacos with crispy pork, quail egg, and flour tortilla.
• Gulay (vegetables), fresh lumpia with hearts of palm and peanut sauce, an ensalada of chicories with goat cheese and black garlic dressing, and tortang talong (charred eggplant with tomato and smoked-coconut bechamel).
• Inihaw (grilled), pork inihaw skewers, smoked lemongrass chicken wings inasal, and hamachi collar with toyomansi glaze.
• Karne (meat), the section the kitchen leans hardest into. A prime New York strip bistek with citrus-soy reduction, a crispy kare-kare with oxtail croquette and tripe in peanut sauce, sinigang of short rib and brisket in tamarind broth, sizzling sisig of crispy pork belly with onions and chili, and lechon kawali (twice-cooked pork belly) with pickled-papaya salad.
• Pansit (noodles), pansit palabok with pork-and-shrimp ragu and bihon noodles, plus a Filipino-style spaghetti with handmade pasta, bolognese, and hot dogs that nods to a household-favorite preparation rather than restaurant convention.
• Lamang Dagat (seafood), kinilaw of citrus-cured hamachi with coconut cream, and munggo at isda (king salmon with mung beans and chard).

Karne dishes come with steamed rice, with garlic fried rice as a +$3 upgrade. Atchara (pickled green papaya), spiced vinegar, and toyomansi (soy-and-calamansi) are available as condiments, in keeping with how Filipino tables are typically set.

Beverage Program

The wine list runs by the glass and bottle, appropriate to its Napa setting but not the restaurant's primary axis. The draft list leans toward the brand of beer-pairing Filipino food traditionally rewards: San Miguel and Red Horse from the Philippines, alongside California crossovers like Taco Truck Lager, North Coast's Scrimshaw Pilsner, and Drakes Hazy IPA. The non-alcoholic side is unusually developed for a small independent restaurant, sparkling water, a mango-hibiscus iced tea, salabat (Filipino ginger tea), calamansi, and sago, which doubles as a signal of how seriously the room takes hospitality outside of wine-country defaults.

What to Know Before You Go

Carabao operates Tuesday through Saturday, with dinner service from 5:00 to 9:00 PM and a single lunch service on Saturday from 11:30 AM to 2:30 PM. The room is on Gasser Drive in south Napa, set back from the downtown First Street corridor and the Oxbow Public Market, a neighborhood location, not a destination-tourist address. The restaurant has a 4.9 Google rating from 1,504 reviews, and reservations are recommended, particularly for weekend dinner.

Investor Eric F. Gonzales has established a Diversity & Inclusion Scholarship Program at Justin-Siena High School. For visitors planning a Napa itinerary that doesn't revolve entirely around tasting rooms and resort dining, it offers a focused alternative in the city.